Nathan Hook is a British larp designer and academic.
Nathan first became involved in the Nordic scene with Dragonbane in 2006, for which he wrote parts of the culture briefings and metaphysics. He regularly attends Knutpunkt and Fastaval, and writes for the Knutpunkt books.
In the Knudepunkt book for 2007, he published 'The Bristol Manifesto.' Spoofing Magna Carta, this larp manifesto presents the position that players shoudl focus on immersing in their characters, organisers should focus on simulating an internal consistent world (including modelling off-screen parts of the world, if needed), and story should be regarded as something that naturally and organicly develops from a sufficiently interesting setting.
In August 2008, Nathan present 'And Not to Yield,' the first Nordic-style larp to be both written and organised in the UK at Grand Tribunal (an Ars Magica convention). It uses 'being trapped in faerie' as a metaphor for the Nordic larp scene, a conceptual place where emotional play comes to the fore. It has since been run at Fastaval, Knudepunkt, Stabcon, Grand Tribunal US, and elsewhere.
Nathan is currently a distance PhD student at Tampere University, Finland, researching identity theory in roleplaying. Prior to this, he compeleted MSc Psychological Research Methods with the Open University, UK with a dissertation researching larpers. His dissertation is available as a free download from lulu.com
Nathan has published 3 scenario books in the Green Book, developing psychodrama scenarios as a form; drawing inspiration from psychological models to create replayable freeforms with strong emotional play. He has also published Heart's Blood, a literary scenario adapting Dracula to jeepform. His books are available online from lulu.com
He presented in the 2014 Nordic larp talks http://nordiclarptalks.org/post/87238078318/identity-crafting-keeping-the-black-dog-at-bay
In April 2014, he co-organised an international run of Pan in Finland.
In May 2014, he published the board game Magus. https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/magus
In November 2014, he co-organised another international run of Pan in the UK. This is believed to be the first multi-day Nordic-style larp run in the UK.
In January 2015, he is co-organising another international run of Pan in the Netherlands.